ORAWEK Weekend Edition — Friday, August 21, 2026

Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir takes the presidential oath today after winning Bangladesh’s first genuinely contested presidential election in 35 years, a political milestone that lands the same week the Dhaka Chamber of Commerce and Industry put a hard number on the country’s energy crisis: up to Tk2,387 crore in lost industrial output every single day. Foreign exchange reserves climbed to $37.35 billion on a remittance surge, US Treasury officials praised Bangladesh Bank’s reform progress, and the stock market snapped a six-session losing streak — but the underlying story for Dhaka’s business community remains the widening gap between political normalization and the physical constraints on production. Globally, the Strait of Hormuz standoff pushed Brent past $93 a barrel, and Russia’s missile barrage on Kyiv underlined that the war-driven energy risk feeding into Bangladesh’s import bill shows no sign of easing.

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Fakhrul elected 23rd president, ends 35-year run of uncontested votes

Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir, the veteran BNP politician and outgoing party secretary-general, won Thursday’s parliamentary ballot with 255 of 343 valid votes, defeating Jamaat-backed candidate Colonel (retd) Oli Ahmed, who received 88. It was only the second competitive presidential election since Bangladesh’s parliamentary system was restored in 1991 — the previous seven presidents were all elected unopposed. Prime Minister Tarique Rahman was among the first to congratulate Fakhrul, presenting him a red rose on the floor of parliament, and opposition leader Shafiqur Rahman offered his own congratulations shortly after the result was announced.

Fakhrul takes the oath of office today and moves to Bangabhaban, succeeding Mohammed Shahabuddin, who resigned on July 24. The outcome was never in serious doubt given the BNP-led alliance’s 250-seat majority in the 350-seat parliament, but the presence of a rival candidate — and a properly contested ballot rather than another uncontested formality — carries some symbolic weight for a government that has spent recent months courting foreign investors on the strength of political stability. AmCham’s president told a Dhaka event earlier this month that American firms, having invested roughly $5 billion in Bangladesh over two decades, are weighing another $5 billion over the next four to five years, and named predictability as one of investors’ three key priorities alongside energy and finance.

DCCI: energy crisis now costs industry Tk2,387 crore a day

The same week brought a sobering quantification of Bangladesh’s ongoing gas and power shortage from the Dhaka Chamber of Commerce and Industry. DCCI president Taskeen Ahmed said the crisis is costing the industrial sector as much as Tk2,387 crore a day in lost economic output — or roughly Tk1,074 crore a day even if factories were running at 55 percent capacity. The country currently has around 2,420 million cubic feet of gas per day against demand of about 3,800 mmcfd, a shortfall of roughly 1,380 mmcfd, or 36 percent of demand.

The damage is visible in the manufacturing data: growth in the sector slowed to 2.86 percent in FY26 from 3.71 percent a year earlier. In Habiganj, 171 factories reportedly lost more than Tk1,000 crore combined after a complete gas shutdown, and around 18 percent of factories in Gazipur have declared temporary closures. Roughly 1,857 investment applications worth about Tk35,000 crore have made little progress because new industrial gas connections remain suspended. Factories are increasingly turning to diesel generators to bridge the gap — industrial gas costs around Tk40 per cubic metre against roughly Tk115 per litre for diesel, and some factories are reportedly spending as much as Tk50,000 a day on backup fuel during outages.

DCCI and industry groups are calling for the government to import sufficient LNG from multiple sources, prioritize industrial consumers, adopt predictable load-shedding schedules for industrial areas, and accelerate domestic gas exploration and renewable diversification over the longer term.

Reserves climb to $37.35 billion as remittances surge

On the more encouraging side of the ledger, Bangladesh’s gross foreign exchange reserves rose to $37.35 billion as of August 20, according to Bangladesh Bank data, with reserves under the IMF’s BPM6 methodology at $32.53 billion. The improvement is being driven almost entirely by remittance inflows, which surged 29.1 percent year-on-year to $2.03 billion in the first 19 days of August alone, building on a fiscal-year-to-date figure of $4.74 billion for the first 48 days of FY27, itself up 21.6 percent on the same period last year.

The reserve build-up coincided with a visit from US Treasury officials. Treasury Attaché Larita Bolden and Treasury local staff met Bangladesh Bank Governor Md Mostaqur Rahman on August 20 and “expressed satisfaction” with the central bank’s progress on macroeconomic management, exchange-rate policy and ongoing banking-sector reforms, pledging continued US cooperation.

Cost of living still squeezing households despite easing headline inflation

Even as reserves improve, the everyday cost picture for Bangladeshi households remains difficult. Trading Corporation of Bangladesh price data shows most kitchen-market essentials have risen over the BNP government’s first six months in office, even as headline inflation eased below 9 percent last month. The taka now trades near Tk123 to the dollar, compared with roughly Tk86 before its sharp depreciation — adding an estimated Tk37 per dollar to import costs — while the broader Middle East conflict has forced Bangladesh toward costlier alternative sources of oil and gas, a cost that is feeding through into utility bills, transport fares, and factory production costs alike.

Commerce Minister Khandakar Abdul Muktadir acknowledged the pressure directly, telling reporters in Dhaka this week: “I am not satisfied with the current cost of living and commodity prices.” He pointed to fuel and electricity prices, borrowing costs, and Bangladesh’s above-average logistics costs as structural drivers that go beyond simple market monitoring. Economists including Zahid Hussain, former lead economist at the World Bank’s Dhaka office, and Fahmida Khatun of the Centre for Policy Dialogue have separately warned that simultaneously cutting interest rates, running an expansionary budget, and injecting capital into weak banks risks working against the government’s own inflation-control goals.

Markets rebound, but $8 billion in World Bank aid remains stuck

The Dhaka Stock Exchange’s benchmark DSEX index gained 16.37 points, or 0.283 percent, to close at 5,786.08 on Thursday, snapping a six-session losing streak that had wiped roughly 125 points and about Tk7,300 crore in market capitalization off the bourse. The rebound followed the DSE’s publication of a list of 139 securities newly eligible for margin financing under revised BSEC rules — 92 of the 139 rose on the day. Turnover eased 8.3 percent to Tk6.72 billion, while market breadth stayed positive, with 192 issues advancing against 127 declining. The Chittagong Stock Exchange moved in the opposite direction, with both its indices ending lower.

Separately, an Economic Relations Division assessment conducted with the World Bank found that more than $8 billion of the roughly $12 billion in project aid pledged to Bangladesh by the World Bank remains undisbursed as of June, with 15 of 37 ongoing projects facing serious implementation challenges. The report cited procedural delays that consume nearly a year before first disbursement, weak feasibility studies leading to flawed project designs, frequent changes of project directors, and land-acquisition and procurement bottlenecks as recurring causes.

Economy Watch: Bangladesh’s key indicators, August 21, 2026

USD/BDT (Interbank): Tk122.06 (High/Low/WAR: 122.20 / 121.95 / 122.06); Spot till 5pm Tk122.3057 — 20 August 2026 reading, Bangladesh Bank

Yuan/BDT: Tk18.11–18.15 (bid rates) — 20 August 2026, Bangladesh Bank

DSEX: 5,786.08 points, up 16.37 points (+0.283%) from 5,769.71, snapping a six-session losing streak — 20 August 2026 close (corrected; see note below)

Gold (22K/bhori): Tk240,628, up Tk3,849 from Tk236,779 — 21 August 2026, 8am, BAJUS/Goldr.org

Forex Reserves (Gross/BPM6): $37.35bn gross / $32.53bn under IMF BPM6 methodology — 20 August 2026, latest available, Bangladesh Bank

Remittances: $2.03bn in the first 19 days of August, up 29.1% y/y; separately, $4.74bn in the first 48 days of FY27, up 21.6% y/y — 19–20 August 2026, Bangladesh Bank

Inflation (July, point-to-point): 8.32%, an 8-month low, down from 9.16% in June (Food 7.16%, Non-food 9.28%) — source-dated 11 August 2026, latest available, BBS

Policy Rate (BB Repo): 9.5%, unchanged since a 50bps cut effective 30 July/2 August (SLF 11.0%, SDF 7.5%) — latest available, Bangladesh Bank

Private Sector Credit Growth (June): 4.47%, a 33-year low, down from 4.98% in May; no July reading yet — latest available, Bangladesh Bank

Classified (Bad) Loans: 32.26% of total outstanding (Tk588,704cr of Tk1,824,668cr) — end-March 2026 reading, latest available, Bangladesh Bank

GDP Growth: FY26 actual 3.7% (below BBS’s provisional 4.14%); FY27 forecast 4.5% — ADB, July 2026 outlook, latest available

ADB Inflation Forecast: 9.0% for 2026, 8.8% for 2027 — July 2026, latest available; note the actual July print (8.32%) now sits below this forecast

Trade Deficit (FY26): $27.28bn, a 3-year high, up 34% y/y (Exports $43.85bn, roughly flat; Imports $71.14bn, up 10.5%) — latest available, Bangladesh Bank

Energy Crisis Cost: Tk2,387cr/day in lost industrial output, or Tk1,074cr/day even at 55% factory capacity — DCCI estimate, 20 August 2026

World Bank Aid Undisbursed: $8bn+ of roughly $12bn pledged; 15 of 37 ongoing projects face serious implementation challenges — as of June 2026, ERD/World Bank assessment

Global signal: Hormuz standoff drags on, Brent tops $93

Five days after the 60-day US-Iran memorandum of understanding on the Strait of Hormuz expired without resolution, Iran’s parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf has issued a list of conditions for reopening the strait to normal shipping traffic, while pressing Washington to implement other terms of the original agreement. A regional source told CNN that Iran and Oman are in talks that could produce a middle-ground arrangement within days, even as indirect US-Iran negotiations continue via Pakistan. Brent crude pushed above $93 a barrel and WTI to around $86.70 on the unresolved standoff, alongside reports of tanker U-turns and record supertanker rates on Gulf-to-Asia routes — a direct pressure point on Bangladesh’s LNG and fuel import bill at a moment when the domestic gas shortfall is already costing industry more than Tk2,000 crore a day.

Russia and Ukraine traded another round of intensified strikes overnight Wednesday into Thursday: Russia launched more than 40 ballistic and cruise missiles alongside 168 drones, with a missile barrage on Kyiv killing more than a dozen people in one of the deadliest single strikes on the capital this year, while Ukraine’s military said it downed 726 Russian-launched drones over the same period as Kyiv continued targeting Russian oil infrastructure in response. President Zelenskyy renewed his call for allies to supply more Patriot air-defense interceptors, warning that international stockpiles are being strained by simultaneous demand from the Iran war.

In the Middle East more broadly, the EU is preparing to label all Israeli-origin products and suspend some collaborations if construction proceeds on the long-frozen E1 settlement scheme, which would split East Jerusalem from the occupied West Bank — a plan the UK, France, Germany, Italy and Canada have jointly denounced. In Washington, the US Treasury said it will more than double the size of its government debt-repurchase operations after the 30-year Treasury yield touched a fresh 19-year high above 5.33 percent; the move briefly pulled yields lower before they resumed climbing on Thursday, dragging US stocks down even as the dollar slid to a three-month low. The Dow fell 1.32 percent, the S&P 500 fell 0.87 percent, and the Nasdaq fell 1.0 percent on Thursday, with the Federal Reserve’s July 29 decision to hold rates at 3.50–3.75 percent (a 9-3 vote, with three dissents favoring a hike) still the latest word on US monetary policy. Bitcoin traded around $64,659, essentially flat after a volatile week.

AI this week: ChatGPT’s new Apple Messages plugin, and the case for approval-gated automation

OpenAI launched an Apple Messages plugin for ChatGPT’s Mac desktop app this week, letting the chatbot — within its Work and Codex modes only, not regular chat — read, search, summarize and draft replies across a user’s iMessage, SMS and RCS conversations, and send messages on the user’s behalf after approval. For Dhaka professionals who run much of their client and vendor communication through WhatsApp, SMS, or similar channels, the practical lesson is less about this specific plugin and more about a pattern worth adopting broadly: OpenAI itself warns that disabling the per-message approval prompt “removes your final chance to review a message before ChatGPT sends it as you.” As AI tools increasingly plug directly into messaging and communication channels, the safe default for any business use is approval-gated automation — never “trust and forget” — particularly for anything client-facing.

ORAWEK is a free weekday morning business intelligence digest for Bangladesh’s business, finance, and policy professionals, published every weekday at 8:00 AM Dhaka time. Read more at orawek.com.